‘What is it you do there, Liza?’
‘Nothing very exciting: take messages, scrollwork and some dictation. Occasionally I get a trip out if the boss wants a smiling face. Hers only being suited for scaring off ogres.’
‘I’ll remember that. Just might come in handy one day, in my line of business.’
The water was finally warming to my satisfaction, so I sat down on the business side of the desk and put on the understanding face I usually reserve for widows and orphans.
‘Now, perhaps you had better tell me all about it.’
For a moment I thought she was going to cave in on me, but she had come this far and did not intend to back down now. I sort of admired that. ‘It’s about this boy I’ve been seeing, Perry Goodfellow.’
She paused, as if expecting some comment from me. If so, she was disappointed; all she got was that same old noncommittal look and the background music of the bubbling percolator. This must have been good enough, as she continued:
‘He’s disappeared. We were due to meet last week, but he never turned up. When I still hadn’t heard anything from him the next day, I called the inn in Old Town where he worked. They said he had collected his pay and cleared out. They didn’t know where he went, unfortunately. A week’s gone by and I’ve yet to hear a word. I’m concerned, no … actually I’m worried sick.’
She stopped and we sort of stared at each other for a while. I got up deliberately and took my time pouring the coffee. ‘No milk, I’m afraid, but I could probably find some sugar.’
‘No, thank you. Black, without, will be fine.’ I passed her a mug and we both sipped through the, almost, too prolonged silence. Finally I said: ‘You know what I have to ask?’
She shrugged. ‘Sure, I wouldn’t be the first girl to be kicked off the unicorn, and I’m not saying that Perry is any sort of hero. There have been other women in his past and there might well be other women in the future, I can’t say; but I know Perry, Master Strongoak. And I can tell you this, whatever the reason, whatever the cause, there is one thing he would never have done, and that is leave without saying goodbye.’
It was a pretty speech, verbs and everything – the full fellowship. If Perry had run off with some other woman, I, for one, was willing to bet that he had made the mistake of his life. When the wolves come howling round my tree, this is one lady I would not mind being up there with me.
What could I say, though? The heart is a strange sorcerer, which casts its spell in the unlikeliest places and kills them on a whim. Something like that, anyway. The Lizas of this world are being lied to every day and crying their eyes out every night, unlike tough hard-bitten dwarf master detectives. They are far too canny to have trod those dangerous paths – ah, sweet Elester, where are you now with your coal-black hair, ruby-red lips and pilfering fingers in the Old Town Pension Trust? Oh yes, serving five years for fraud after I found the evidence in the false bottom of your bedside bridal hope chest. After all, dwarf, elf, human or gnome, none of us are immune. Shoot, I even saw a goblin once get mushy over a piece of skirt he picked up in a bar – and he wasn’t even trying to eat her.
So it was my turn to shrug. ‘Some people just don’t like goodbyes.’ After all, I’d had more than my fair share and I’d never got exactly fond of them. Taking another jolt of coffee, I put down the mug and reached for the security of my pipe resting in the ashcup. Something was making me edgy. Painful Memories or was the coffee simply too strong?
Just put it down to the weather and move on, Nicely. ‘I can afford to pay you, Detective Strongoak. I have some savings.’
‘We can talk money later,’ I replied, convincingly dismissive. ‘I offer special good-neighbour rates.’ I paused for a moment, hoping that didn’t sound suspect and scratched my chin.
‘Thank you, Master Strongoak.’
I got up, decision made and topped up our cups. ‘One thing I insist upon, call me “Nicely”. All that “master” business went out when my forefathers traded in their pickaxes for steam hammers.’
‘Nicely. I like that. It suits you. Is it your proper name?’
‘My proper name has rather more consonants than folk, other than dwarfs, can get their tongues round.’
‘So, why ‘Nicely’?’
‘Well, I could tell you, but then I’d only have to go and make you swear a blood oath with your lips sewn by spider silk under a sickle moon … and we all know how tiresome that can get!’
‘I think we’d better leave it then, thank you, Nicely.’ She relaxed a little and laughed for the first time. It was an attractive laugh, like water falling in a cave lit by magic torches.
I needed to lay off the weed and find me a lead. It didn’t pay to get too sentimental.
First I reached in the drawer to get out the papers that made it all legal – next I would concentrate on obtaining the necessary background concerning young Perry Goodfellow.
Magic torches, bah!
The sun was dropping over the Third Level wall by the time Liza had left. I poured the last of the coffee into my mug and went to the window, watching the sightseers and lovers making shadows on the battlements. I bit the brew – the coffee was too strong and too stewed. I poured it into the basin, watching it drain down the hole and begin its long journey to the bay. Tonight there would be a few fishes sharing my insomnia.
My wagon was in the smiths, having its shoes changed. There was also a small steam leak that I just couldn’t locate. The condenser was struggling but she was losing power on hills, so I just had to bite the bullet and lay out the big buckskin to get her fixed. In the end, and in the vain hope that some exercise might burn off the caffeine and use up some surplus energy, I decided to exercise the beggar’s nag and walk down the Hill to Old Town.
Tidying the desk by sweeping the contents into a drawer, I picked up my jacket, hung the ‘Back Much Later’ sign on the doorknob and shut up the store. I took the lift to the lobby. Old Jakes was on reception and we had a quick word, concerning the optimal watering of geraniums and the pros and cons of mulching, before I headed out into the late-afternoon heat.
If I was to get to the bottom of Perry Goodfellow’s disappearance, his last place of employment sounded like a good place to start. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but hopefully it would be big and obvious and preferably have ‘clue’ written on it in large letters.
The walk gave me some time to review the facts regarding the life and career of Perry Goodfellow, as Liza Springwater had just related them to me. Liza and Perry had met on the beach at the Gnada Peninsula the summer of the previous year. They had been strolling-out ever since. Perry worked at an inn as an odd-job man and runner. The duties could not have been too onerous as he seemed to spend most of the time surfing. The picture Liza had brought with her, now sitting in the top pocket of my suit, showed a tanned, relaxed individual with curly black hair. It was taken on the beach. Under one arm he carried a surfboard, in his other hand he held a gold chalice. This, I was reliably informed, was the Gnada Trophy, the big prize of the surfing season, and he’d beaten an elf called Highbury to win it. The Gnada Trophy had disappeared along with Perry and this was upsetting various surfing folk. To be frank, it could have been a giant’s eggcup for all I knew, but a job’s a job.
Passing through Black Guard Bar – the unofficial entrance to Old Town – after a quick word with a helpful local, I soon found Perry’s inn. Although Fourth-Level, it was on the right side of the Hill.